Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Review: Looking Glass

LOOKING GLASS is the eagerly-awaited second novel/scientific thriller/criminal mystery in author/illusionist Andrew Mayne' s super fantastic THE NATURALIST Series. Computational biologist, mathematical and programming genius, Dr. Theo Cray (formerly Professor, University of Texas-Austin), is without a doubt my favourite protagonist. (I can only think of one other protagonist and one highly important secondary character I admire as much, and both of those are found in John Connolly's Charlie Parker series.) Theo is an exceptional individual, a character who is so self-analytical but almost constantly doubting his human traits, an intellectual genius, a scientist with incomparable value to science, academia, law enforcement, business and industry, government, because he is a savant at spotting patterns. What he doesn't see on his own recognizance, he codes programs to find. He could be so valuable, but bureaucracy and egotism rule, so instead of being applauded, his own academia jettisoned him, certain law enforcement agencies basically despise him, and now he is employed by a subcontractor working on Defense Intelligence Agency research. But you can't keep a facile brain muzzled, and quickly Theo finds himself drawn into a horrid ongoing killing series spanning decades, involving children, international politics, conspiracy and cover-ups--and black magic. I kid you not. Theo nearly didn't survive his first encounter in The Naturalist; he's likely not to survive this either.